Uncle T’s, Bear Essentials Food Pantry Partner For Drive

Uncle T’s and UCA’s Bear Essentials food pantry partnered up in a food drive last month and will continue their partnership through the month of July to bring in more donations.

Uncle T’s is currently collecting donations through sales, which will be added up. They will determine how much is donated at the end of the month.

“To contribute you either make a purchase, any kind of purchase, there is no minimum — it could be a pack a gum, anything,” Uncle T’s Manager Brené Woods said. “ Or you could just join our loyalty program and mention to our cashier that you would like to contribute to our food drive and we will put a tally mark.”

He said the tally marks will be added up at the end of July and will determine how many canned food items will be donated.

Donations will be in the form of non-perishable food items that UCA ounselor and outreach program member Reesa Ramsahai said will be placed directly in the food pantry to be available for students in need.

Woods said the hope is to first bring in more customers with the food drive, while simultaneously increasing donations for the food pantry.

The food drive started in June when Ramsahai approached Woods about the program.

“I saw that Uncle T’s advertised a lot and thought if maybe we could approach him with the idea. Also, if he is willing to help maybe others in the community may decide to help,” Ramsahai said. “It’s always good to have a partnership with someone there to help. We need many partners, as many as we can get.”

She said that the food pantry could use any donations that it can possibly get because it runs 100 percent off of donations, with no allocated funds.

She said the only other donations come partly from the money UCA’s Staff Senate sets aside, from items donated and partly from professors who may decide to donate money from their paychecks.

She said that the only other source of donations could be made through the community, which is one of her goals with this project: getting the community involved.